Motley Moose – Archive

Doors

I live with two dogs and two cats. They all need me to let them in and out. 

This is because I worry. I worry that if I made them their own door, they’d get in trouble. Casey the Border Collie would freak out at some noise and claw himself over the fence and run off. Jess the Calico Cat would take to working the streets and never come back again.

Charlotte the Mildly Autistic Tortoise Shell would likely still hang around and sleep on my spot on the couch. She likes being an indoor-ish cat. Caught herself a big mouse on the stoop this evening though. I was effusive with praise. Jess hung back and looked at me a bit plaintively, perhaps suggesting that she’d had a role in this fine capture of this exceptionally impressive mouse?

Likely. I’ve seen them tag-team before.

My other inhouse non-human here is The Fabulous Furry Frolicking Falcor. All my pets are rescues, and he and the cats date from last year. Falc is a border collie-Great Pyrenees cross, and is okay left in the yard, but still, I worry. What if something horribly terrifying happened while I was gone? I’ve only been his human since last summer. We haven’t done the thunderstorm thing since the weather hasn’t been cooperating. 

So, I do the door thing all the time. I keep my non-human peeps here in, I keep them out occasionally. But it all seems so rude on my part. 

There is an ex-pet door, covered over with plywood, that I could uncover and rework. I could also fit it with a movable cover.

Point being, I spend a lot of time here on my turf. I like to keep doors closed because of flies. (mosquitoes are technically flies.) So why am I being so controlling about this door thing with my nonhuman friends? 

I can probably fix this by knocking out a little sheetrock, maybe cutting back a few two-by-fours some, and making some kind of flap and then working out an interior barrier with plywood and slotted hardware. 

Yes, I can.

To tell you that I look forward to going to work everyday would be an understatement, that this fifty eight year old beat the odds and found work that I love in this economic environment so hostile to anyone older than fifty..let’s just say I’m darn lucky. Being unemployed for two years I was so desperate I would have taken almost anything just to earn a paycheck again, but I stumbled into something special.

More about that in the next diary.

There are numerous benefits attached to this job, some more obvious than others. As an animal lover I’m surrounded, as an outdoor verse cubicle person I’m in my element, all of them. I’m doggedly independant and have been mostly self employed my entire life: I check in, collect keys and I spend the entire day without supervision or anyone looking over my shoulder. I will sometimes walk up to 10-12 miles a day, add to that climbing stairs and riding my bikes during the warm months, I’m very fit and have to purposely eat to maintain weight.

The not so obvious benefit is my exposure to so many dog breeds I was unfamiliar with. In an odd sense it’s akin to a free long term test drive, seeing a dog everyday I pick up quirks and traits that are inherant in certain breeds, invaluable information that a potential dog owner needs to know before choosing a new pet.

My wife, Ms. O and I had a dog when I began working here and after eight months I had no idea this benefit would be so important so soon, but it was. Our 14 year old Black Lab/ Great Dane mix Lexie was suddenly diagnosed with inoperable cancer so we had no choice but to let her go.

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